Hello,

I am the owner of an old 2011 M17x R3 that has done his time and which I have been very satisfied with, mostly because all the components were easy to upgrade or switch when broken. In particular I use GPUs intensively and in 11 years I had to replace mine 5 times.

I am looking for a replacement laptop that I can use for Deep Learning prototyping (this is even more GPU-intensive than just gaming, so my GPU *WILL* die soon enough).

Naturally I would have bought a x17 but I see that these machines have GPUs soldered to the motherboard, which in normal circumstances would be a total deal breaker for me. However, after some research, I find only one competing alternative, which is the Clevo X170. But this alternative is more expensive (than Alienware, yes), less powerful and definitely uglier looking than the current x17 I can get in France (which is 12th gen Intel whereas Clevo is 11th).

Hence my question: say I buy an x17 bearing in mind that I will kill its GPU shortly after the guarantee ends, will it be possible to deactivate it from the BIOS afterward, use the integrated GPU instead, and use a thunderbolt 4 eGPU as a replacement?

Thank you for your help!